A vehicle tracking and management system automates vehicle tracking in a vehicle assembly, delivery chain, or fleet operations and automates the tracking and managing of vehicles indoors and outdoors within a campus or facility-wide environment within the various stages that a vehicle travels as it moves from a point-of-manufacture such as off-line assembly areas at a factory to the consumer. The vehicle throughput through off-line processing is increased with an associated improvement in labor productivity and a reduced dwell time of vehicle inventories.
A real-time location system (RTLS) is typically used for tracking vehicles to maintain control over the automated vehicle tracking and management such that wherever the vehicle is located within the assembly area, off-line area, shipping yard, railroad mixing center, marine terminal mixing center, truck distribution center, vehicle outfitting center, or dealership, the vehicle can be located and tracked. A vehicle can be located from initial assembly in a facility to different areas in the delivery chain. These are areas in which vehicles are held in containment and in different staging and processing areas. Vehicle processing can vary in these areas, however. For example, a car wash may only be able to process one vehicle per minute, but a shipping yard, railroad mixing center, or marine terminal mixing center could possibly process five or more vehicles per minute. In some of the staging and processing areas, this difference may force some vehicles into another containment area, forming an excess, accessorized inventory. Usually, the processing task areas work as fast as possible without consideration for bottlenecks down the line, causing containment build-up. Because the overflow cannot be addressed within the work-in-progress (WIP), some type of control should be exercised.